From Here to Paternity

understand about the Holnagrad Society to start with. Holnagrad’s a little speck of a place in the Balkans. Russia had already gobbled it up before World War One. Most of our ancestors fled the country then. And another mob came over during and just after the Second World War. There weren’t a lot of people there to begin with and most of them fetched up in the U.S. So the Society was formed in the 1920s to keep traditions alive from the Old Country. You know—dances, songs, language, history. Anyhow, an important function of the Society is the concern with genealogy, and all these years we’ve been trying to get church records and cemetery records and the like out to help trace our roots. Every now and then somebody’d get a visa to go back—for a long time the country was behind the Iron Curtain—and would smuggle out some more copies of original documents. All very cloak-and-dagger, with hidden cameras and sneaking into churches in the dark. Sorry, I’m telling you a lot more than you wanted to know. Anyhow, when the Soviet Union fell apart, lots of records were suddenly available and Doris got her teeth into some.“
    “Did she go there?“ Shelley asked.
    “No, but another member of our group did, and Doris was helping her translate and catalog documents. Doris is a whiz at reading old handwriting. Don’t know how much you ladies know about history, but Tsar Nicholas abdicated and his younger brother Michael refused the crown. On their own behalf and that of their children. The next in line…“ He paused. “Well, the next in line—according to one theory, let’s say—was a cousin of Nicholas and Michael’s who was married to a woman from Holnagrad—a princess. This Romanov cousin saw which way the wind was blowing even before Nicholas abdicated, and he—the cousin, that is—dropped out of sight. A lot of people figured he went to Holnagrad to hide out with his wife’s people. But nobody’s ever proved it.“
    “But Doris found something that did prove it?“ Jane asked.
    Lucky moved his hand in a “so-so“ motion. “Maybe. She found some church records that seemed to be of the same family, but they were calling them-selves Romanofsky. This Romanofsky, the Tsar’s cousin—if he was the Tsar’s cousin at all—died in Holnagrad in 1916 or so—Spanish flu, I think. Doris pieced this together with a ship manifest dated six months later. The ship left Paris, or maybe Lisbon, I don’t recall which. On it was a woman calling herself Elsa Roman and her son, Gregor. The Holnagrad princess was named Elsa and their son was named Gregor, so Doris could be right. But there’s no proof at all.“
    “How does all this tie up with Mr. Smith?“ Shelley asked, waving at a passing waiter to get some more coffee.
    “The ship docked in New York. And just a few months later, in the archives of a Brooklyn, New York, court jurisdiction, a record appeared of a Gregory Ruman or Roman—the handwriting’s terrible on the original document—applying for American citizenship and changing his name to Gregory Smith.“
    “Ah! A Smith at last,“ Jane said. “But there are a lot of Smiths.“
    Lucky nodded. “Exactly so. It wouldn’t take a genius to come to this country and figure out that the best way to get ‘lost’ would be to call yourself Smith. And a lot of people have come here wanting or needing desperately to get lost. Anyhow, now workin’ back the other way, Bill Smith’s father was named Gregory. He was an old mountain man out here, turned up in the early 1920s, and was supposed to speak Russian.“
    He raised his forefingers and tilted them toward each other. “So Doris worked up one line and down another and figures they match up and are the same person.“
    “But Mr. Smith doesn’t buy it?“ Shelley asked.
    Lucky shrugged. “Bill doesn’t really say much except that he’s not interested. He’s not much of a talker about anything. All he wants to do is sell this place and retire to Florida.“
    “And you don’t think it’s true, either?“ Jane asked.
    “Oh, it might be true. I don’t know. But Doris hasn’t got proof, just suppositions. I used to do some forensic stuff. You know, identifying teeth of bodies the police found and such. And I know from that experience that just because something could be doesn’t mean it is . And genealogy’s a lot the same. Not quite as exact—it’s not a science, after all—but you need more proof than coincidence. And this is a